“I’m Aboriginal, representing my culture, not only my country but all my people as well. I’m very proud and that’s what I wanted to do and I’m happy I did it.” Damien Hooper, Australian aboriginal Olympic athlete

“What the Supreme Court did in Citizens United is to say to these same billionaires and the corporations they control: ‘You own and control the economy; you own Wall Street; you own the coal companies; you own the oil companies. Now, for a very small percentage of your wealth, we’re going to give you the opportunity to own the United States government.’” Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), in Senate Judiciary subcommittee testimony, July 24, 2012

“It’s very odd how for some progressives and liberals in this country wars, secret detentions and bailouts and violations of habeas corpus, that were heinous and terrible and hideous when an inarticulate white Republican from West Texas does it, becomes curiously okay when a sophisticated black lawyer does it.” – Paul Street, a journalist and author

– The one Olympic record sure to fall this week in London: most super yachts docked at one time in one small stretch of river. City officials are expecting 100 mega pleasure boats to dock on the Thames for this year’s Olympiad, including the biggest boat of them all, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s 557 foot-long Eclipse, as well as the $200 million supersized dinghy that belongs to Microsoft founder Paul Allen. Billionaire wannabees don’t have to gawk from the shore. They can pull alongside by chartering their own super yacht. Boats like the 213-foot Seanna, Time reports, run just $450,000 a week.

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s super-yacht Eclipse

– Since the 1970s in the United States, the tax rate on income over $400,000 has dropped from 70 to 35 percent. Over that same span, households in America’s top 1 percent have over doubled their national income share, to 20 percent. http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/TJF_7-2-2.pdf

Gore Vidal in ‘The Nation’: Elder statesman of American letters and long-time Nation contributor Gore Vidal passed away July 31 at the age of 86. Here are some of his more powerful essays from nearly half a century of writing for this magazine. http://www.thenation.com/article/169187/gore-vidal-nation

Three outstanding Asian films – As nations with a distinct identity going back for thousands of years, China, Korea and Japan provide a deep well of historical sagas on a par with Beowulf, the Iliad or any other more familiar Western tales. Not surprisingly, the film industry of each country has tapped into this rich vein in order to create memorable works. http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/three-outstanding-asian-films/

Is human behavior controlled by our genes? Richard Levins reviews ‘The Social Conquest of Earth’: “Failing to take class division into account is not simply a political bias. It also distorts how we look at human evolution as intrinsically bio-social and human biology as socialized biology.” http://wp.me/p2hhYl-3mG